Hi Pollycat - based on all you have reported here, there is no doubt that your experience was very poor with substandard service levels. This would be unsatisfactory in a business class cabin, let alone First. The reason offered by the Purser (light load = complacent crew) may have been an honest one - but it in no way amounts to proper justification for what happened during your flight.

All that said, I think you were pretty unlucky. From my own experience, across many years of using Emirates (dating back to a year or so after their launch in the mid-eighties), First class standards on EK - whether full or lightly-loaded cabins - are generally very high, and often, exceptionally so.

I have been on several EK flights in First where the loads were very light - including two flights (one, an A380 sector, the other a 777) where I was the only passenger and can say that I was ‘fawned over’ by two members of crew working in First. At no stage did they appear to move to work in other parts of the aircraft. (indeed, once the main meal service was over, much of the time was spent in galley conversation - with myself as a welcome participant !).

I think you need to decide whether you feel it appropriate / worthwhile making a formal complaint about this unfortunate episode. You were seated in the most expensive part of the aircraft and have every right to expect a true premium service, delivered by dedicated crew assigned to the First cabin. Based on the exchanges you had with the crew (in particular, the Purser), only you can know whether any further action is of merit or interest.